The FU Manchu ladies are back after a long winter’s nap! For three months we’ve been pigging on polenta fries and popping tags like Macklemore. But if you think not having a pot to piss in means looking bargain basement, think again.

Check out our YouTube for a peek at coming distractions from FU.

Nothing beats a tea party to cure me of a bad case of March ides. For this shoot I grabbed two bolts of my best Balinese batik and headed out to Eagle, Idaho, to meet Ms. Kelly Lynae on her favorite horse ranch.

And I’ll be damned if that girl doesn’t know her way around a safety pin! Kelly took my vintage batik swathes, procured from a tiny shop in Ubud, Bali, and swaddled the two of us in torqued elegance. I cast my bra aside because it’s April and time to let the minimalist fashion games begin.

This was the moment I decided to hell with scarves. I transformed the natty red scarf I’d been tortoising around all winter into a plunging halter top. Kelly styled me in thrift store belt and then we tried our hand at interpretive dance.

Why? Because we live in Idaho. Because I don’t own a TV or a salad spinner and most everything in the great Gem State, including entertainment, is DIY.

And here are the lessons I took from the long, harsh winter:

1) You will fail along the way to creating something new.

2) What other people think of you is none of your business.

3) Do what you love every day. The secret to any great performance, after all, is muscle memory.

Kelly: Why do we fight each other? A thought bubble rises from some bottomless pit of soul to explode at the surface with resentment.

Bethany: As I get older, I am recognizing the fight is sometimes more within myself than with the other person. My insecurities skew how I interpret or relate to the other person’s actions. If I am worried about being likable or interesting, I am sensitive to when the other person doesn’t ask me questions about my life.

K: Nine times out of ten, it’s all me. When some truth becomes newly clear to me, I want to pass it around like a bowl of candy or a tray of Kool-Aid in paper cups. I can have trouble tolerating someone who doesn’t understand my most tender discovery.

B: I wrestle to accept my shortcomings. And I often find a way to resent those very same shortcomings when I see them mirrored in a friend or lover. I feel as though the success or failure of my own personal growth hinges on the self-awareness, or perceived lack thereof, of the people I care about. I’ve been known to drive myself crazy with this line of thinking.

B: When I see someone where I have been before, I feel connected. It tortures me most when I can’t understand where someone is coming from, why they did what they did. Past memories morph. Did we ever like, love, or know each other? The ground dissolves.

K: It is a profound loss. Itching like a lost limb, a phantom consciousness natters on inside my head: What if there were some outside thing? A rock, a shoe, or a shovel? A hammer or a mirror? Could we have found a touchpoint to bring us back to ourselves?

B: The only thing we control is our own perception.

K: We cannot come together without losing something. To get a sacred amulet, you must surrender a sacred amulet.

B: My desire to be close again is frantically noble. I struggle not to compromise to the point that I muffle my self-respect.

K: My life is in a state of flux. As I rapidly unearth a new self, my relationships struggle to adapt. Newer friends like Bethany are giving me the courage to let others go.

B: Over the last year, I lost a best friend of nearly ten years. Very rarely did we ever talk about our hurt feelings. Two of the the last times we did is when I gave up. Her interpretations of my actions were so far off from any motives I would ever have. I didn’t know what to do. I wouldn’t be friends with me if I was who she thought I was. I grew distant. Things festered. My own understanding of her actions were probably wrong too. In the end, it was our insecurities that eroded our relationship.

K: Who knows why it ends? Who knows what steers our actions? Maybe I too am addicted to Samsara. For better or for worse. Till death do us part.